


I Dream of Penny

by jacksonja



Category: I Dream of Jeannie, The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 22:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15422694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksonja/pseuds/jacksonja
Summary: Shenny fluff. Sheldon takes a vacation trip with the guys and finds more than he expected on a beach.





	I Dream of Penny

**Author's Note:**

> The lines where Penny is speaking Persian are my poor attempt at translation and transliteration with the help of Google and other programs. I apologize to any Farsi speakers for mangling a lovely language. The number notes have translation in the end notes
> 
> This is meant to be completely AU and would be around the start of s1 and isn't meant to be especially canon.
> 
> Everything belongs to other folks, I'm just playing with the toys.

Sheldon hung in the air three thousand feet above the ground helpless and irritated. He kicked himself for agreeing to this ridiculous skydiving idea. The vacation trip to Indonesia had been amusing but why he had let himself think trying extreme sports was a good plan was a mystery. The air turbulence should have been a clue to insist the plane return to the airport. Airport was a misnomer, more like an open field in a malaria filled hell. He had been prepared to jump along with Leonard, Howard, and Raj when a sudden pitch of the plane hurled him out of the door. When he saw no sign of the others, he assumed the turbulence might have led the plane’s crew to cancel any jumps before they had another jumping mishap. It was all very unprofessional. Leave it to Wolowitz to find the most incompetent skydiving school in the country. Fortunately, the descent allowed him to quickly scan the locale. There was an easily accessible stream and material for a crude shelter within an hour’s walk up the beach from where he was coming down.

He landed safely. At least, the school’s instruction had been adequate on that point. He gathered up the parachute materials. The webbing and chute materials would be invaluable for building a shelter and be useful for signaling rescuers. The walk up the beach was uneventful. The jump had been on the dry side of the island and the prevailing winds kept down bugs so, apart from being lost in the middle of nowhere, all was well. If he had his laptop, this would actually be an excellent area to do some work. The climate was balmy, not unlike Galveston in spring, and there were no crowds of tourists filling the beach like the resort they were staying at. He considered the possibilities of subletting or renting a property somewhere out of the way like this place if he found any habitation in the area.

Sheldon finally got to the stream and started making a crude shelter with the parachute and some of the available loose wood and branches he could find. He has happy he thought of bringing a lighter, Swiss army knife, and a few other survival essentials in the belt pouch he brought on the fateful excursion. They made setting up camp a good deal easier. He had a small collapsible metal cup that he could boil water in and could sterilize it before drinking it. The water looked clean but there was no knowing what contagions might be in it. He got a fire started and a couple of flat stones to use as a heating surface that he put on the fire to warm up. He then set up a set of three signal fires ready to be lit when a rescue plane or boat might come into view. With his shelter set up, Sheldon went to the stream to get some water. In this heat, water was invaluable. He was already feeling far too dehydrated. He got some water to boil in his survival cup and put the metal cup on the flat rock in the fire to boil.

He went back to the stream to look for any sign of fish. He thought he might be able to make a crude spear and try to catch some fish if there were any in the water. He walked slowly along the bank of the stream so as to not startle any potential dinner.

In the mud of the stream he saw a curious purple and green bottle. It had a long thin neck and a flattened onion shaped bottom. It had an ornate gold filigree pattern that looked like something from Persia with stones inset that looked very much like rubies and emeralds. It had to be some kind of tourist kitsch since something that was really made of so much gold and jewelry would hardly get tossed into a river. Besides, who or what was around to toss something like that here? The size of the bottle would make it far more useful for boiling and storing water than the one small cup so he pulled it out of the mud and looked to see if it was unharmed and useable. The bottle seemed sound and in one piece. It was ceramic rather than glass so Sheldon was hopeful it would be a serviceable water jug for him. He washed away the crust of mud on the bottle then pulled the stopper out. He started brushing away a bit more of the sand on the neck when a green cloud of mist whooshed out of the bottle. Sheldon dropped the bottle and stepped back in alarm to get away from the strange unknown gas.

The gas didn’t disperse; instead it solidified into a woman. She was blonde and looked to be in her early 20s. She was dressed in petite jade green slippers and diaphanous green silk pants, a darker green halter top and vest, and sheer green veil that wound about her face and held her blonde hair up under a small green cap. She looked like a genie from the Arabian Nights, which having appeared out of a bottle seemed likely to Sheldon. ‘Who are you?’

The woman knelt and pressed her palms together like in prayer with her head bowed and spoke in a formal tone. ‘Slam astad mn. Mn bndh tw hstm. Asm mn Penny ast.’ 1

Sheldon had no idea what the woman said. Besides, he was still trying to grasp that she had appeared out of the bottle. ‘I must have sunstroke and I am hallucinating, that’s it. Of course, I’ve been walking and working in tropical heat for far too long with too little water. I found a bottle and my imagination conjured this up.’ That made sense of all of this. Water and rest as soon as possible was what he needed.

The hallucination looked up with vibrant green eyes. She cooed and smiled. ‘Shma bsaar khwsh tape hstad.’ 2

Sheldon had no idea why his imagination made her speak a language he didn’t understand but when she got up from where she knelt and walked up to him and put very real hands around his neck and kissed him with very soft lips he was sure he had lost all grip on reality. ‘mmm… muh… what… you can’t… please!’ Sheldon did his best to disentangle himself from the woman’s arms without screaming.

The strange woman stepped back a pace still smiling and looked adoringly at Sheldon. ‘Cheh makhwaha, astad?’ 3

‘You are real, aren’t you? This isn’t some hallucination from heatstroke,’ Sheldon touched his lips wondering if genies had germs? If they did, could they affect humans? He had no idea what to do next. ‘You really are a genie?’ Sheldon started explaining how genies couldn’t exist then tried explaining how they might since one was standing right in front of him. After a couple of minutes, even he didn’t know what he was trying to explain.

Penny sat down on a rock outcrop and listened to Sheldon’s odd foreign babble with delight. It had been centuries since she had last heard any voice, human, jinn, or otherwise. ‘Sdaa shma bsaar zaba ast. 4

Sheldon sat next to the genie and touched her arm to see again if she was really here. She giggled in delight at a human touch after so long and held Sheldon’s hand. ‘It’s like you stepped out of The Arabian Nights. This is like Aladdin and the Lamp? This is amazing. I loved those stories as a child. My Meemaw would read them to me in the evenings for bedtime. If you are a genie and I let you free of the bottle, do I get wishes like the stories?’ Sheldon grew excited. This woman, genie, whatever she was, might be able to get him out of here. ‘Who are you? What is your name?’ The woman looked at him quizzically so Sheldon pointed to his face. ‘My name is Sheldon Lee Cooper.’

The woman looked with understanding and smiled. ‘Dwst dara bkhwaba?’ 5 

She crossed her arms and blinked her eyes. Sheldon smelled roasted beef soon afterwards. He looked around and saw a large open tent. Outside the tent, there was a fire with several joints of meat turning on spits set up next to the fire. He could smell the aroma of beef and lamb. Inside the tent was a large table covered in trays filed with pineapple, mangoes, kiwi, dragon fruit, and other fruits. Other platters had fish, vegetables, soups, and other foods he could only guess at. Crystal decanters filled with wine and goblets made of gold sat nearby. Sheldon’s mouth dropped in amazement. She could obviously make things appear like genies in the Arabian Nights. Clearly, starving was no longer an issue for some days with the amount of food in the tent.

‘No, no, I mean the food is nice but I wanted to know your name.’ Sheldon frowned; the woman didn’t understand English so introductions were pointless. Instead, the important thing was to get rescued. If she could make a recue plane appear, he could signal it. ‘Um, what I need is rescue, you know a rescue plane.’

Penny sat back chewed her bottom lip and pondered. ‘He’s not eating, perhaps he wasn’t hungry?’ She thought to herself.

Sheldon figured miming might work since words didn’t. ‘I need a plane, like this.’ He stuck his arms out to the sides and walked quickly in a circle around the rock the genie sat on. ‘A plane, that’s what I need.’

‘Ah, perhaps he is some royalty and wishes to amuse himself by hunting something for his table?’ Penny nodded hopefully. 'Aaa ma khwahad ake hwache braa shkear bkhrad, astad?' 6 

She blinked again. Sheldon screamed in shock. A very large hawk was tethered to his arm by leather straps that were attached to the hawk’s feet. It held its seat on his arm with extremely strong talons. Sheldon tried waving it off his arm without thinking but being tethered the bird could only flap its wings in outrage. Fortunately, it was hooded so its beak couldn’t do any harm but the talons were digging in painfully. ‘Make it go away, make it go away!’

Penny blinked again and the hawk, tent, and food all disappeared. She was sure she must be making her new master very unhappy. She knelt on the ground with her head bowed and hands in prayer. ‘Mtasfm, astad mn shma ra naraht nkerdm.’ 7

Sheldon shuddered after the hawk vanished. ‘What were you thinking? How did rescue plane mean huge, nasty raptor? Good lord, woman!’ Sheldon started to lecture then stopped himself when he saw the young woman kneeling and cringing under his shouts. He had called himself thirty-seven different words for fool from four different languages before he made it to his knees in front of her. ‘I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to think of planes. You probably don’t even know what an airplane is and thought I wanted some kind of hunting bird?’ The genie kept her head bowed and eyes closed as if waiting for some kind of punishment. Sheldon lifted her chin and smiled to reassure her that he wasn’t angry. ‘Please, I’m sorry. I am not angry with you. I’m angry with me for not thinking.’

Penny was surprised by her new master’s kind voice and physical gentleness. Most would have flogged a jinn too silly to grant a simple wish but he sounded so very kind and merciful. She was sure he must be a very good man.

Sheldon thought about what she might understand, something preindustrial. He face-palmed himself since it was so very simple. A boat would be something she must be familiar with. ‘I should have asked her for a rescue boat to begin with.’ Sheldon stood up and started miming again. ‘I need a boat, it’s got a motor and you steer it like this.’ He made a vrooming sound and made like he was using a ship’s wheel and walked around the beach.

Penny watched Sheldon walking and moving his hands and making the odd sound. ‘I am not sure, is he using reins of some kind? And running around, Perhaps, he wants a steed?’ 

‘Shma maal bh asb hstad?’ 8 Penny said cautiously and blinked hoping this would please her master.

Sheldon whipped around when he heard a horse nickering behind him. There was a handsome black Arabian saddled with a sumptuous saddle and bridle and reins decked with jewels. His sister Missy would have killed for this get up. ‘At least, I know what to do with you, even if I don’t care for horses.’ Sheldon took hold of the bridle and brought the horse’s face around to him and put his forehead on the horse’s forehead and sighed with the animal.

Penny stood up with a relieved smile. Her master seemed satisfied with the horse. ‘I’m finally making some progress. He would look lovely riding along the surf line.’

Sheldon looked at the horse and grew alarmed. ‘Oh, good Lord, what if there are a limited number of wishes?’ Sheldon looked at the genie again. She seemed happier, at any rate. Sheldon was flummoxed. She kept misunderstanding his messages. He was worried he might be out of wishes but the genie didn’t seem to be ready to go anywhere. She just kept smiling and waiting on him. ‘This would be so much easier if you spoke English. I wish you could understand me.’

‘Well, I can understand you now, master.’ Penny was relieved to feel the change. A genie appears in the form the new master desires. He had at last desired that she understand his language so the magical laws that governed genies assured that she did.

‘What?’ Sheldon was astonished and delighted. ‘How can you speak English? What were you speaking before? Why didn’t you speak English when I talked to you?’

Penny tried to keep up with the flood of questions. ‘I speak English because your heart desired it just as your heart chose the shape I now have. I was speaking Persian because it was a well-known language of the world when I was last out of that bottle. I didn’t speak English before because I had never heard it before. Genies don't know everything.’

‘That makes sense, I guess, in a world with genies. What is your name?’ Sheldon wanted to know so much now that he could speak to this amazing creature of mythology.

‘My name is Penny, master. How may I serve you?’ Penny was thrilled she could now fulfil her purpose to this kind and beautiful man that had freed her.

‘That is a very modern sounding name for a genie. My name is Sheldon. How did you get a name like Penny?’

‘I was born on the island of Ithaca and I was named for the island’s queen, Queen Penelope.’

Sheldon sat down in wonderment. ‘Queen Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes?’ Sheldon tried to wrap his head around the idea that the Iliad and the Odyssey were seemingly factual history.

Penny sat down next to Sheldon, ‘Oh, you know them? They were lovely people, and they really knew how to throw a party.’ Penny was so glad she and her master had mutual friends. ‘Where are you from, master?’

‘I’m not your master, Penny, stop saying that.’ Sheldon could only imagine how Leonard, Raj, or, heaven forbid, Howard would react to this woman calling them master. ‘I’m from Texas, but I live in Pasadena, California, now. I work at Caltech. I used to have a roommate, but he moved across the hall last month so I live on my own.’ Sheldon wondered why it was so easy to talk to this strange creature. He thought she might have some strange power that made him want to sit here and talk to her?

Sheldon let that pass. He had bigger things to worry about like getting rescued. ‘So, I freed you from the bottle, does that mean I can ask you for some kind of wish like Aladdin and the Lamp?’

Penny nodded. ‘Of course, whatever your heart desires, master,’

Sheldon frowned at how Penny kept on addressing him. ‘Penny, I need a rescue boat to take me back to my friends. Can you get me a boat to get out of here? Something with a crew since I don’t know much about sailing?’

‘Easily done, master.’ Penny crossed her arms and blinked. Out beyond the breakwater a boat appeared.

‘The signal fires, I need to light them!’ Sheldon started running to the fire he had made earlier to get some embers to start his signal fires so the boat could see him at this distance. Penny saw what he was trying to do and blinked the three wood piles alight. When the flame and smoke got high enough, someone on the boat fired off a flare gun to signal the beach their fire had been seen and understood. Sheldon could make out the ship anchoring and putting a smaller boat down into the water. He figured the water must be too shallow or unknown to bring the larger boat any closer.

‘Penny, you are wonderful!’ Sheldon hugged Penny from joy at the sight of the rescue boat dropping into the water. ‘Thank you, thank you so much, I have no idea how I could repay you for this.’

‘You do not have to thank me, master. I am your servant. I am here to grant you whatever you wish for releasing me.’ Penny explained feeling slightly confused as to why Sheldon would think she needed to be rewarded for this.

‘Penny, I am not your master, you’re free now. I don’t want a servant, I don’t need one. You’re free to go do whatever you want.’ Sheldon tried to make Penny understand that they were even now and he certainly didn’t want a slave or servant.

‘Free? Free to do what I want? Is that your wish, master?’ Penny tried to fit what Sheldon was saying into a genie’s worldview. No human had ever just let a genie go free. Why would any human give up the power to have anything simply by asking for it?

‘Yes, I wish for you to do what your heart desires, Penny.’

Penny jumped and danced in glee. ‘Thank you, most generous and wonderful of masters, may all the gods favor you in all things!’ She hugged Sheldon and kissed him fervently. 

He was too stunned by her exuberance to think about his quirks. Besides, being freed from bottles and slavery would make anyone forget themselves he supposed. When Sheldon looked for the boat again he saw it getting closer to the beach. ‘I have to go, Penny; I am going to miss you.’

Penny was so happy she hadn’t thought about Sheldon going away. ‘Miss me, but I am yours for freeing me?’

Sheldon guessed old habits die hard, especially habits of thousands of years, so he tried to explain again. ‘Yes, but I am going back to the modern world. I can’t just show up with a genie. It would be chaos.’ Sheldon searched for the right words but he couldn’t think of what to say. ‘Of course, I like you but you are free, now. I can’t bring you around with me like some kind of slave or something.’

Penny thought about what Sheldon was telling her then it dawned on her what he meant. ‘Oh, of course, you do not want people to know you have freed a genie. It does make people very dangerously envious. You are very wise.' Penny walked back to the stream and picked up the bottle she had escaped from and threw it at the outcrop she and Sheldon had first sat on shattering the bottle into pieces. She looked at the broken shards of her prison in triumph. ‘Thank you, master!’ She mounted the horse and with laughter cantered the horse around and then raced down the beach finally disappearing in a cloud of green mist that vanished on the wind.

‘Good bye, Penny.’ Sheldon felt sad looking at the empty spot where Penny had vanished from but the shards of the shattered bottle near the rock made him feel better about it. No more masters or prisons for her, it felt good.

The shouts from the rescue party landing on the beach brought Sheldon back to being rescued. He ran to greet the landing party. They had been sent out by the skydiving company to look for him. They were surprised they found him so soon. Sheldon and the crew gathered his few things at the campsite and went back to civilization. They returned to the ship where Leonard was on the radio eager to hear Sheldon’s voice. ‘Hey, buddy, you made it in one piece! Man, we thought we lost you.’

‘Greetings Leonard, it’s good to be heard though Wolowitz can forget about trying out for the roommate test. This mishap is simply inexcusable.’ Sheldon felt on familiar territory thinking about home. He passed a few minutes telling his friends about what happened, except for Penny.

Sheldon ended the conversation and thanked the ship’s captain for letting him use the radio. The elderly man was short on words but not unkindly and reminded Sheldon of his grandfather a bit. ‘Excuse me, do you believe genies and things could exist?’

The captain looked at Sheldon and wondered how long the young man had been out in the sun, though, after all his years at sea he had seen quite a few odd sights in his day. ‘I’ve never seen one but I would like to think there is magic in the world. My brother is a fisherman. He said he once saw a mermaid not far from these waters. It’s a strange bit of coast here. The currants are rough around this stretch so few come to these parts.’  
Sheldon wondered if those rough waters had sunk an old ship and that had beached Penny there. ‘What are some of the stories about this place?’ Sheldon spent the next hour talking about the myths and legends of this part of the island. There were no genies in any of the stories but there were many other oddities stretching back as long ago as any remembered.

After a few hours at sea, much of which Sheldon spent thinking about meeting a real genie, the ship brought him back to the town where this misadventure had started. Leonard and the guys were waiting on the dock and they went back to the hotel to celebrate Sheldon’s safe return. The rest of the vacation went uneventfully. Sheldon often excused himself from further activities with the gang to go exploring on his own. Leonard thought that was strange for Sheldon but didn’t give it much more thought. Howard was happy with it since they didn’t have to accommodate Sheldon’s quirks. Raj thought Sheldon seemed to finally be enjoying himself. He noticed how oddly Sheldon had acted since the rescue. He’d asked Sheldon about it but he didn’t say much beyond building a campfire and waiting for the rescue boat. Sheldon’s silence about something as tremendous as almost dying in a parachuting accident and being stranded on a rain forest beach made Raj wonder what had really happened there.

The gang returned to California at the end of the week. Sheldon spent much of the flight explaining why none of them were suitable roommates after that disastrous skydiving attempt. When they got to LAX, the four cleared through customs and retrieved their bags. They were too worn out to do much beyond head back home but jet lag kept them feeling too awake to sleep. It was late afternoon so they decided to go to Sheldon’s place and order food and marathon a few episodes of Farscape.

Sheldon and the gang decided to order pizza delivered to avoid cooking and because they’d had better Thai and Indian food on the trip than was available in Pasadena. It felt too early to be disappointed by lesser varieties of cuisine. When they got to the apartment building, Leonard, Howard, and Raj started carrying the bags up to the fourth floor while Sheldon got the mail for Leonard and himself. He said he would also order the pizzas while he was bringing the mail. He said he would be a few minutes letting the building manager know they were back from vacation.

‘Let’s drop the bags in Leonard’s place so Sheldon doesn’t start being Sheldon any sooner.’ Raj wanted to eat and hoped to avoid a situation developing early from Sheldon’s post-vacation rituals.

‘Good idea, we’ll drop our stuff and then go over to Sheldon’s with his bags.’ Leonard thought the idea great. Raj clearly handled jet lag the best of them. They got to the fourth floor and put the majority of bags down in 4B then they went over to 4A, to put Sheldon’s stuff down for him. They unlocked the door and walked in to find a young beautiful blonde girl in the kitchen area. She was wearing Sheldon’s Green Lantern T-shirt, his briefs, and stockings.

Raj froze in shock. His anxieties about women going through the roof at the sight in front of him

‘Uh… hi?’ Leonard managed to stutter. He had never seen a woman so breathtaking.

Howard went into pervert mode and quickly sauntered up to the woman. ‘Well, hello, mistress of the T-shirts, Howard Wolowitz at your service.’

Penny’s face went from a smile to a frown when Howard started crowding her space. ‘Hi, who are you?’ Penny had thought only Sheldon lived here so she was not ready to trust these three strangers, especially, one who oozed like some kind of worm.

Leonard got control of his mouth at last. ‘Hi, I’m Leonard, this is Raj, and you’ve met Howard. We’re friends of Sheldon. We just got back from vacation with him. Who are you? Are you watching the apartment for Sheldon or something?’

‘I’m Penny and I met Sheldon in Indonesia.’ Penny kept eyeing Howard who kept trying to get as close as he could to her.

‘You met him in Indonesia?’ Howard asked and sidled up to Penny and took hold of her right hand. ‘How about you meet me In-doe-bedroom?’ He tried to kiss Penny’s hand but she jerked it out of his grasp.

Penny had had enough with Howard’s stalking and hand grabbing. ‘Melvin!’ A loud angry snake-like hissing came from Leonard’s old room. 

Raj’s anxieties about speaking in front of women were overcome by the fifteen foot snake that came slithering rapidly out into the living room. ‘Cobra! A giant king cobra!’

Howard looked around towards the hissing sound and saw the snake heading right for him. He screamed and ran out the front door and Raj was right behind him. The snake stopped at Penny’s feet putting itself between her and the three men. It reared up with its hood flaring out in anger. It hissed again in warning. Leonard felt faint but he had to try to help Penny. ‘Don’t move! That thing is deadly. We need to get animal services here to get rid of that thing. Don’t move!’

‘What are you talking about? No one is taking Melvin anywhere.’ Penny glared at Leonard for threatening her best friend.

‘Melvin? Who’s Melvin? Do you mean that cobra?’ Leonard sputtered the questions from the doorway. He couldn’t imagine that thing was any pet. He was relieved when he heard Raj come up behind him. Howard was still in the doorway petrified by his close encounter with the venomous serpent. They all looked aghast at the easy way the innocuous looking girl was petting the snake.

Penny cupped the snake under its jaw and gave it a playful little kiss. ‘Of course, Melvin is my friend. We’ve known each other for ages. He would never hurt anyone, would you, sweetie?’ Penny gave the snake another peck and giggled when the snake’s tongue tickled her nose. ‘Well, he wouldn’t hurt anyone I like, at any rate.’ She added that with a glare towards Howard. The snake looked at the men and hissed again. ‘I think you made your point, Melvin. Why don’t you go back to bed?’

The snake looked at Penny and then back at Howard and hissed once more for effect. It seemed almost pleased when Howard turned ghostly white. It slithered back into the room it had come from when the three men all stepped back towards the door to be closer to the safety of the hallway outside the apartment. The room stayed in an uneasy quiet for the moment. Penny was not very happy that Leonard had threatened Melvin and she really didn’t want Howard near her at all. Raj seemed OK but he really hadn’t said anything beyond being shocked to see Melvin. The guys were just relieved that the snake was gone but they didn’t want to get far from the door in case it came back. Penny might be able to handle snakes but there was no way it could understand commands like she seemed to think. Leonard was wondering if she was just some crazy woman who found the apartment empty and had taken up residence.

Sheldon came up the stairs with the mail and strode into his apartment unaware of anything amiss. He didn’t expect the tackling.

Penny was overjoyed when she saw Sheldon walk into the apartment and past his three friends. ‘Master! Oh, how I have missed you!’ She leapt at Sheldon and flung her arms around his neck. The mail went flying and Sheldon and Penny went stumbling backwards and landed on the couch with Sheldon on his back and Penny on top of him and kissing him with abandon.

‘Mu.. ja…mwa… Penny? What are you doing here?’ Sheldon was too confused by the jet lag, long plane flight, and unexpected assault to think. He was delighted to see Penny but not so much by the tackling.

Penny laughed at Sheldon’s perplexed expression. ‘You said I could do whatever I wished and I wish to be here with you, silly.’ Penny started tickling Sheldon to make her point. Sheldon tried to fend off her tickling oblivious to everything else.

Leonard and the guys were goggle eyed at the sight on the couch. Penny had said she met Sheldon on the vacation. It must have been some meeting to get a reunion like this. They all wondered when they had missed this event in Indonesia. Raj suspected this was why they had seen so little of Sheldon in the last days of the trip. When the tickle fight calmed down, Leonard tried to figure out what was happening here. ‘So, you guys met in Indonesia? Penny was telling us you met there after we came in.’

Sheldon was too busy trying to wrestle his way out from under Penny to answer so she spoke up. ‘Yeah, he rescued me-‘

‘From the river,’ Sheldon finished her answer for her; he didn’t want the guys finding out what Penny really was. ‘When I landed with the parachute, I came down next to a small river. Penny was caught in some rocks near where I landed and I got her out of there.’ He hoped that would answer the mystery of Penny and put an end to any more questions.

Raj whispered something to Howard and he agreed with Raj wholeheartedly. ‘Yeah, that does sound epically romantic.’ They were both fantasizing about swooping down into a tropical rain forest and finding a beautiful damsel in distress to save like Sheldon had apparently done.

Leonard was fascinated by this woman, not least because of her clear fascination with Sheldon. ‘How did you end up trapped in a river in an Indonesian rain forest?’

Penny remembered Sheldon didn’t want folks to know she was a genie. She thought it best these guys didn’t know even if they were Sheldon’s friends. He, obviously, hadn’t told them about her after he was rescued, after all. ‘I had been living around there for a while. I was out hiking and I got my leg trapped in some rocks under the surface. That was when my beautiful master found me and rescued me.’

‘Penny, can I get up now?’ Sheldon finally got Penny to sit up on the couch and get off him. He wanted to get to his seat and reestablish some kind of normalcy to all this. Penny curled up next to him threading her arm under his. He wasn’t sure why that wasn’t bothering him. ‘It must be the jet lag.’ He wondered to himself why this felt comfortable.

Leonard wanted to find out more about this unprecedented turn of events. A gorgeous blonde girl was hanging off Sheldon’s arm and he wasn’t freaking out about it. ‘Are you from Indonesia, Penny?’

‘Oh, no, I was born on Ithaca in Greece.’ She looked at Sheldon when she felt him tense up. She thought it was harmless and true and said nothing about her being a genie.

Sheldon wanted to deflect any further questions. The more exotic her background sounded the more questions Leonard and the others might start asking. ‘Her family is from Omaha, she was just born in Greece.’ Penny wondered why Sheldon was adding details but she nodded her agreement with the Omaha story but said nothing more.

Raj loved the fairy tale quality of all this and whispered a question to Howard. He was just as caught up in this story as Raj was. ‘You guys really got to know each other in that jungle didn’t you?’

Sheldon and Penny looked at each other but neither knew how to really respond to that without saying too much or too little. Sheldon just wanted to stop any more questions in a hurry. ‘Not as well as we’d liked to have, I guess.’ He looked at his three friends who showed no signs of leaving. He had to get Penny out of here before the questions got started in earnest. ‘Penny, we really need to talk privately, could you wait in the bedroom for me a minute?’ He hoped the guys might take that as a hint and go but Penny took an entirely different meaning from it to Sheldon’s own.

‘Oh, I like that idea!’ She hauled Sheldon to his feet. He noticed Penny was surprisingly strong for her size but he didn’t get a chance to say anything as Penny fast walked them to his bedroom. He stumbled along too shocked to stop her enthusiastic march. ‘Bye guys.’ Penny waved at the three men by the front door and disappeared into Sheldon’s bedroom with its confused owner.

The guys wondered for a second what they should do when they heard Sheldon’s raised voice. ‘Penny, put your clothes back on! What, give me my pants back!’ That was followed by Penny. ‘Oh, master, you have nothing to be ashamed about.’ They didn’t get to hear more since Melvin slithered back into the living room and glided up onto the couch. He glared at them for a few seconds and hissed. The guys beat a hasty diplomatic retreat shutting the door behind them on their way. 

They moved things over to 4B where they got their pizza and marathoned Babylon 5. None of them could make sense of a world where Sheldon had a woman like Penny hanging out with him. The thing about calling him master came up which brought up a world of fantasy that even they grew embarrassed by. Leonard tried to sum up their speculations with a simple observation that spoke for all of them. ‘Why couldn’t I have been pitched out of the plane?’

‘Do you think you’d like to be roommates with Melvin?’ Raj was given the deciding point with that retort.

Back in 4A

‘Penny, stop this madness, now!’

‘Aren’t we having a ‘private’ talk, master?’ Penny was confused by Sheldon’s running about the bedroom. He seemed to not want her to please him.

‘Penny, I just wanted to stop Leonard’s questions, I wasn’t trying to get you into bed!’ Sheldon ripped the blanket from his bed and wrapped himself up but it didn’t do anything to hide a very naked Penny.

‘You don’t have to try, I want to be here. It’s why I came here. You have given me more than any genie has ever gotten from a master, freedom.’ Penny shook her head sadly. Sheldon didn’t want her here. She flung open the door and stalked out into the living room. She was relieved to find Melvin on the couch and plunked herself down next to her old friend.

‘Melvin, what did I bother coming here for? Master doesn’t even want to make love to me.’

‘Penny, dearessst friend, monkeysss are ssstrange but no one freesss a genie without more love for the genie than they have for themselvesss. Do not confuse love for sssex.’ Melvin had been unsure this trip to Pasadena had been a good idea when Penny had shown up out of the blue in India. He’d been delighted to see his old friend after a thousand years and learning she’d been freed from slavery was cause for epic celebration. When she’d told him her plan to go to California to find Sheldon he wanted to curb her enthusiasm. The world had changed far beyond imagination for someone out of touch for a millennium, even jinn like themselves. He knew he would have to come along to play safety net if her idea to get together with this Sheldon didn’t work out. He was starting to think he was right.

‘I know that; I am more than three thousand years old, after all. I wish I knew where Cousin Jeannie was. She was good at handling difficult humans.’ The trouble with bottles was jinn lost track of each other. Penny hadn’t seen Jeannie since the fire in the Alexandrian Library. She thought ruefully of that night and the party that had gotten out of hand but Jeannie’s sister had dared her to do that fire dance. It wasn’t her fault the place went up in smoke.’

‘Funny you ssshould mention her. She isss in Florida, a part of thisss very country.’ Melvin wanted to tell Penny more but Sheldon came into the living room.

‘Penny, there is a very large snake sitting next to you. Is it yours?’ Sheldon was new to this crazy genie world but he’d read enough mythology to think a genie might have animal friends. He figured she could surely deal with the snake unless she got it to deal with him after wanting her out of his bedroom. The Arabian Nights were filled with stories of bad endings for people, too.

‘No, of course not, Melvin is a friend who wanted to come along with me.’ Penny sat back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. If Sheldon didn’t want to see her, she certainly didn’t want to see him.

‘Penny, you are sitting in my spot.’

‘So what?’ Penny wasn’t in a mood to be accommodating right now.

‘That is my spot because-‘

‘Free genie, don’t care right now. You made it very clear how you feel about me. You don’t get to give commands anymore.’ Penny wanted Sheldon to feel her hurt. She had thought he was kind but she wasn’t so sure anymore.

‘Penny!’ Sheldon was annoyed at how Penny had dropped herself into his apartment and life. Now, she was taking over his spot. It was unacceptable.

‘SSSheldon, why did you free Penny?’ Melvin was curious about that. It was almost unprecedented. However, there did seem to be many similarities to this Sheldon and Jeannie’s Tony.

Sheldon looked at Melvin in surprise. ‘You can talk? How can a snake talk?’

‘How can a monkey talk?’ Melvin caught the Texas twang in Sheldon’s voice. ‘Are you from Dallasss?

‘No, I’m from Galveston. I will concede there are a lot of monkeys in Dallas, though, why do you ask?’

‘I knew a man from Dallasss with some experience with geniesss. He underssstood that you must always ssspeak to them from the heart or you will never be underssstood.’ Melvin slipped off the couch and headed off to his room for a snack. He wondered if Texas just bred men like Tony and Sheldon or if it was an accident.

Sheldon thought a minute about Melvin’s advice and Penny’s galloping up an Indonesian beach with all the world open to her and that she chose to come here. ‘Penny, do you mind if I sit down?’

‘Your couch, suit yourself.’ Penny’s anger was very clear but Sheldon took the concession with grace.

‘Penny, I am happy you are here. I’ve missed you ever since you rode away on that beach.’

‘Then why don’t you want to have sex with me? I know your heart wanted this form so why don’t you want me?’ Penny was at a loss since she’d been trapped so long giving people what they desired she thought she understood the idea. Now, that she had the power of choice herself, nothing she wanted happened.

‘Why do you want me?’ Sheldon guessed it was for freeing her that she was here but that would be just another kind of slavery. ‘You don’t owe me anything. I would hate for you to feel you did.’

‘I thought we liked each other. We even have the same friends.’ Penny was sounding morose and rejected.

‘I do like you. What friends?’

‘Penelope and Odysseus, or were you just making that up?’

‘Making that up? Penny, they are part of cultural history. Everyone knows them, especially as played by Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano, but they lived millennia ago, I’m barely thirty.’ Sheldon was starting to think more about her perspective. ‘I don’t want you to be here or to do anything for me because I freed you. You don’t owe me anything, certainly not yourself.’

‘What are you saying? You want me to leave?’ Penny was ready to go and never come back. There was a world outside a thousand years from when she last saw it. That should give her something to occupy a few decades, at least.

‘I want us to be friends, not because I freed you or because you liked me when you saw me but because we understand each other and can be good for each other. I do like you Penny, but I don’t know you and you really don’t know me.’

Penny gave that some consideration. She might have rushed into this. Melvin wanted to have a party in India but she had insisted on coming to Pasadena. Maybe, this was like Alexandria and she should wait to start dancing? ‘I guess I am rushing into this. I have been alone for a thousand years, Sheldon. You can’t imagine how grateful someone can be to be released from unending nothing.’

‘Then, we should work together on that, making something.’ Sheldon hoped Penny was feeling a little better. She sounded more like her happy self.

‘Where should we start with making something together?’ Penny was curious about what made this very unusual man tick.

‘Mutual interests are a good place to begin; I suggest a Star Trek marathon. The Enterprise mission to seek out new life and new civilizations should be one that is copacetic to your situation. First, however, you might try seeking out some clothes.’

They watched a number of episodes. Penny found Captain Kirk most pleasing whenever William Shatner lost his shirt. She also enjoyed McCoy’s ability to drive Spock up the wall but often felt McCoy was being unfair in expecting Spock to be more human. ‘Spock never tells McCoy to be less human and I think the jibes hurt him more than they do McCoy.’

Sheldon was surprised at Penny’s insight into the show and looked forward to the next episodes he had up, the pilot episode, The Cage, and its series inclusion in ‘The Menagerie’. He was still more surprised by her reaction to the episodes. ‘That’s how I feel, the way Spock was saving Captain Pike. You gave me freedom. A genie. You let go the power to have anything because you wanted me to be free. How could I not want the world for you? How could Spock not want the world for his captain even if it meant death?’ You mean that much to me.’

Sheldon was awestruck at someone feeling so much towards him besides his mother and meemaw. ‘I hope I never forget that because I am very selfish.’

‘No, selfish people don’t free genies. Maybe, you are self-involved, but you are not selfish… Sheldon.’

‘You didn’t call me master,’ Sheldon hoped Penny was aware of the change in address.

‘Would you like me to call you master?'

‘No, never.’ Sheldon was happy just to sit here and share his world with hers, equals. ‘So, did you have a favorite scene from the series?’

‘I did like the green girl scene. Vina as an Orion slave girl, that really looked like home. Except for the green girl, no one in my family is green. My cousin Jeannie almost got married to a Blue Jinn but he was a piker.’

‘A lot of fans like that scene, Vina is quite iconic as an Orion woman.’ Sheldon wondered where Penny was going with this moment of nostalgia.

‘Who would you like to go to Orion with, if you were Captain Pike?’ Penny thought they could have some fun with this Star Trek stuff.

Over in 4B

Several hours later, the time difference caught up with the guys and Howard and Raj said good bye to Leonard and headed out for home. They heard music coming from 4A that sounded like Sheldon might be watching Star Trek. The music was from the pilot episode, The Cage where Capt. Pike was watching Vina dance as an Orion slave girl. They decided to check in on Sheldon to see how he and Penny were getting along. They were careful of the snake being around so they were cautious opening the door and looking inside. Somehow, Sheldon had redecorated his apartment to look like the scene from The Cage. There were silk hangings, torches on the walls, and thick rugs covered the floor. There were musicians playing where the kitchen should be. Sheldon was sitting on cushions in the corner opposite the front door where he was sitting with Mr. Spock, Commander Data, and Melvin. Then, they saw Penny come dancing into the living room. She was green and had black hair and her finger nails were at least three inches long and looked like talons. She was a perfect cosplay Orion slave girl.

Penny stopped her dance abruptly when she saw the door ajar and the faces of Raj and Howard looking in. 'Melvin, get them!'

Raj shut the door when the snake launched itself at them. They rushed down the stairs and outside the building before they started talking. Raj looked at Howard. ‘I didn’t see that. I didn’t see any of that.’

‘Me neither, cause if I did, I’d have myself committed.’ They both agreed that the strangest part of all that they saw was Sheldon seemed to have been deep in conversation with Melvin.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Here's what Penny is saying in my terrible version of Persian. If someone speaks Persian let me know or just think of it as a Jinn dialect of Persian.
> 
> 1) Greetings, my master. I am your servant. My name is Penny. : S’lam astad m’n. M’n bndh tw h’stm. Asm m’n Penny ast.  
> 2) You are very handsome. : Shma bsaar khwsh tape hstad.  
> 3) What do you wish, master? : Cheh makhwaha, astad?  
> 4) Your voice is very beautiful. : Sdaa shma bsaar zaba ast.  
> 5) Would you like to eat? : Dwst dara bkhwaba?  
> 6) Would you like a hawk for hunting, master? : Aaa ma khwahad ake hwache braa shkear bkhrad, astad?  
> 7) I am sorry, Master. I failed to please you. : Mtasfm, astad mn shma ra naraht nkerdm.  
> 8) You wish to have a horse? : Shma maal bh asb hstad?
> 
> Crossposted at Fanfiction Archive


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